


Not The Villain

by QueenKelli



Series: Heroes [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Addiction, Liam trying to be strong, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Zayn sees it though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 06:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3719131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenKelli/pseuds/QueenKelli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's April when they go to the center. Liam takes care of them over the summer and the year that passes. It's hard, but if he puts up a smile, he thinks maybe all his friends will be okay. </p><p>He isn't the hero anyway, he's picking up the mess he's made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not The Villain

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to come up with a sequel after reading a lovely poem by T.S. Elliot called The Waste Land, which is what heavily inspired this work! I actually tried to proofread it this time and I decided to keep it one whole thing instead of the five chapters. I wouldn't want five super short chapters. 
> 
> Not The Villain is actually a bit longer than Not The Hero, only because I wanted a better ending and all. Anyway, Feedback is awesome.

**I. The Burial Of The Dead**

It's after the funeral, between scratchy throats and swollen eyes that Liam tells Harry to get help. With addiction at the ring of his neck and dragging him to the grave Louis sat in currently. He put up a fight, of course. Ripped lungs screeching about how his dreams could never satsify his reality. The world was too terrifying to handle on a mind held sober of any toxins entering his veins.

He takes him to a rehab center, and there's a surprise apparently in his back seat.

 

It's spring, mid-April when there's a call at 4 in the morning and it's Zayn breathing heavy on the phone. He sounds as if he just finished sobbing into oblivion and Liam can barely register what he's saying along the lines of hiccups and gagging sounds and floods of tears pouring from his eyes.

He knows they aren't healthy, none of his boys are. Niall was hanging on the edge by a needle because he couldn't keep himself together. He wasn't as strong as Liam, and he didn't care. Everything was chipping away. The paint along the surface showing the terrifying reality of it all. None of them were strong, not now. But Liam was the one who could pretend strength was something he occasionally stored up his sleeve- for his boys.

 

So it's April still, his car is filled with people he cares about, Niall in the front, Zayn and Harry in the back with blood shot eyes and the beginnings of detoxing. Harry's begin to take in the habit of scratching his arms, which just makes his chest ache more, and Zayn seems as if he's biting his tongue and swiping off any blood that even  _attempts_  to spill.

 

He tells them it's for their own good. Harry is disagreeing, he doesn't say it aloud, but he can tell by the shall shakes of his head and quick breaths. Zayn wanted to do this though, because Zayn knew Louis first, before they got carried away beyond limits they didn't believe was possible.

It led to his inevitable death, and Zayn told him that night, on the phone,

_"I don't want to be a coffin."_

It's terrifying. His friends falling apart like petals from a rose. But Liam knows he needs to keep strong. If he pushed Harry back to the real world, if he told him about the dangers of staying in the clouds too long, this wouldn't happen. It wouldn't have to come to aching hearts filled with longing of a departed friend and the two others who are soon behind.

The mindset becomes stuck, like a tack harboring the back of his mind. It doesn't leave, not for a while, or the drive down to the nearest clinic in the city.

They arrive, and High School has long passed for them. Harry is 18 and Zayn is 19, so their parents weren't needed here. He's able to help Harry and Zayn fill out their forms, and he figures, somewhere along the drive, Harry realized this was best.

 

Liam sits in his empty room. His bed is no longer on the frame. Most of his things are packed away in the truck out in the front of his house. It's very late, and the sky's turned dark with the moon illuminating his room from the window. He thinks about Niall. Harry. Zayn. He thinks about his two sisters who look at him with worried eyes and welcome him with open arms.

He thinks about addiction. How it consumes a man and leaves their skeleton for their families and friends to repair the best they can. But it's so hard to try to keep something alive when it's already dead.

He thinks about Louis, and it hurts. He hasn't known him long, but he remembers sharing an elective with him, where Louis would make small jokes and pick on the larger male. It was funny, and he appreciated the childhood he still had in him.

 

The ceiling is white. Like a hospital room. He thinks about him and Niall and the Styles taking Harry to the hospital. Louis was too far long to be helped. He was already a skeleton when they found him. And maybe, if Liam stopped it earlier, when he warned them about flying too high like Icarus, then Louis wouldn't be a skeleton in the dirt of April. He would be broken and damaged, but you can fix broken things, with time and effort it can be fixed. But you can't fix dead things.

 

It wasn't until morning when his alarm went off did he stop crying that night.

 

 

**II. A Game of Chess**

 

Spring has died down and Summer has begun in full spirit. It's the beginning of June and Liam has visited once a week on Sundays.

He see's Harry, always Harry. He sees him and though his eyes are a bit more swollen and the joy in his eyes have begun to die, he still smiles, and Liam likes to think he really does mean it (the smile never reaches Harrys eyes though, he's seen it, but he's trying, and it takes time).

He visits Zayn every week on Saturdays when June begins, because visiting every two weeks wasn't cutting it for him.

Zayn was more composed, he'd like to think. He was better at keeping himself together, even when he wasn't, he did what he could.

 

Whenever Zayn did break, it was like a wave.

 

There were slim moments, they were sitting at a chess table in the recreation room on a Saturday, and it's too hot outside for comfort, so they sit under the air conditioner and Liam picks the black pieces.

He tries to strike up a conversation, but typically their moments consisted of silent company or exchanging comic books Liam's collected over time.

He talks about Uni, how he was probably going to take a semester off and get a job at a store down the street from the clinic. He mentioned how he's found a nice flat with Niall that was close here too, wanting to visit them and giving Zayn the best smile he could.

He watched him play with the king piece, a nail running around the curves and crooks of it. It was a bit broken, the marble piece was old after all, but they were still usable.

 

_'I think we are in rats’ alley. Where the dead men lost their bones.'_

Liam thinks Zayns thoughts are too loud. The silence was too loud, but it wasn't the typical, comfortable silence they usually shared between smiles and hands that would lay on top of each other. It was overbearing silence. Silence aiming to suffocate and constrict the lungs of anyone in the radius.

He can hear Zayns breathing hitch. It was broken and scratchy and he suddenly stood up, the table shaking and his hands flying to his hair to pull. Their thoughts were loud, so loud. He can hear him practically screaming in his head until it becomes a reality.

A nurse is coming from around the corner, and Liam stands in shock as he hesitates to go over to him and wrap an arm around his fragile waist. He's still screaming and it's painful to hear. It was a scream of a broken man who has grown frustrated of revival. He is tired and death is at his doorstep, welcoming him with open arms.

His large hands rub at his back, when he finally feels frail ones cling to him like a scared infant, shirt stained with tears as he feels deaths grip break loose from Zayn.

It isn't silent anymore. It's loud and it's brash and it tells Liam Zayn is  _alive_.

 

He's yelling through tears, and Liam can't make it out until he chokes, hiccups, and screeches.

 

_"I don't know how to play chess!"_

 

Liam laughs, and so does Zayn, and he thinks, yeah, they'll be alright.

 

 

**III. The Fire Sermon**

 

In mid-July Niall tells him about a bonfire the center might have for the better guys. Family and friends are allowed to attend and Liam thinks it's a great idea.

Niall has been keeping up with Harry, though he can't always. Niall is frail and is scared as much as any of them. He looses control a lot, and it scares Niall, and he won't visit for the next few weeks, leaving Liam to care for Harry. He doesn't mind though, because he finally see's the spark floating back behind his eyes, and it's beautiful.

There's all sorts of fun activities at the center that Liam can help participate in. He's noticed Zayn has some sort of key-chain from these poker chips with numbers on them. It has a large 2 on it, and he asks about it. He watched him smile, not caring about the movie playing in front of them in the lounge with the lights off and a scene illuminating his face.

 

_"It's how long I've been sober in months."_

He hears the slight happiness in his voice, and it makes it all worth it, fingers laced together and Liam never asks himself why or how. But he does remember the small kiss they share when no ones eyes are on them, and it doesn't feel wrong.

 

So at the bonfire, there's songs being shared around everyone, stories and other sorts. Zayn is there, but Harry isn't. Harry wasn't well enough to attend. He still screamed and threatened to hurt himself because death still gripped his wrist with Liam holding his other and played tug-o-war.

He's safe though. Niall assured him that by fingers running through his hair to be sure.

Zayn comes with papers in his hands, scraggly print on them which he guessed was his own. It was lists of papers, and he stands next to Liam and shows it to him.

Things he needs to get rid of in his life. Things he doesn't need but his subconcious clings to like a child and a mother. Drugs, death, and regrets lie in there, and Liam doesn't leave.

 

He stands next to him, reading off the papers and the list of things he needs to be rid of in his life, how he'll grip a paper harder and Liam would have to usher him to toss it in the fire. They're at 27 when Zayn starts crying, but he presses him further and further.

_Finish the pile, burn your demons. Let yourself free._

 

He let's out a cry, and it sounds relieved. He's relieved. Death no longer lives outside his door. Death is far gone, and he feels _free_ , for the first time in years. Their hands are together when they leave back to the center, and they are alright.

 

_'I can connect_

_Nothing with nothing._

_The broken finger-nails of dirty hands._

_My people humble people who expect_

_Nothing.'_

 

Liam doesn't cry in his flat, not tonight.

 

 

**IV. Death By Water**

 

In winter, Harry dreams about drowning.

 

It's the abrupt coughing at night and the restlessness in Harry's movements that brings him to worry. The nurses keep saying it's withdrawal, but it's been months, and he's pretty sure this is the wrong type of clinic for him.

Zayn was due to leave by Springtime. It's coming to a year and his chips were increasing and being replaced by larger numbers. When he saw him he would see smiles that shone farther than the seven seas and laughs that echoed in his ear drums.

 

But Niall couldn't visit Harry anymore. Not until the dreams stopped.

 

It was the one night Niall slept over with Harry enclosed in his arms even though he was smaller than the two. It was sudden, in the middle of the night he rose and made gagging sounds. Scratching at his throat and desperate for some air to take in. It was a dream, it was a dream. The constant chanting Niall attempted to echo into his ears failed, and violence erupted.

The room was trashed that night, and Niall feared to return. Harry wasn't stable, Liam saw that clear. He still thought of reality as something that shouldn't be acknowledged and it's the night he walks in on Zayn and Liam half naked and sweaty with arms scarred to his shoulders, when they transfer him.

He still visits him, sits with him through the nights crying and hearing him sob about Louis and wanting to die. It makes his heart ache, and he wonders how far into the pit of his stomach it's dropped since he heard Harry speak quietly, as if Liam wasn't there.

 

_'A current under sea picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell he passed the stages of his age and youth entering the whirlpool.'_

 

Niall doesn't visit Harry in the institute. And soon, once a week becomes every three.

 

 

 

**V. What the Thunder Said**

 

The stars are littering the sky and Zayn can pick out all sorts of major constellations in the sky. Liam can't exactly, only Orion's Belt, but it's difficult in a sea of stars.

 

It's April, a poker chip reading  _ONE_  on it in Zayns palm and Liam's hand in the other. The night doesn't feel real. It doesn't. They don't want it to be real, but at the same time, very much so.

 

It's been a year and the sky looks dark, and there's still a couple clouds in the sky, so Liam warns him about the rain. Things have been growing better, he tells himself. Harry was sent home finally.

 

Finally.

It was after the epiphany on a day with Niall's visit when Harry get's a slap from reality does he finally come down. He doesn't dream unless he's asleep, and it isn't about drowning when he is.

 

It starts to rain when he laughs, grabbing Zayn and pulling him up in the roof of his flat. It's beautiful like him, he thinks, and they try to run back inside through the staircase with soaked jeans and wet shirts. It's the bubbly laugh that makes his heart pick up from the pit of the stomach it's dropped too far into. Death has left them alone and they can live in peace, the sounds of thunder outside can not reach them for they are in a world where it is real, and his dreams are meaningless.

 

The night Zayn comes into his room in the early morning when he's wearing boxers and crying like a child in the middle of the floor is what turned things.

It's silent, and he's still hiccuping and trying to wipe his eyes, but Zayn is next to him, arms around him and rubbing a comforting arm.

 

He isn't the hero, he couldn't save his friends from falling and it's his fault, he likes to think.

Liam can't remember when he started to enjoy it either, but he hears him speak, it's soft, and silent, but it saves him too.

_'Showing your weakness is one of the strongest things ever.'_

 

He knows from there that he isn't the villain, the remainder of his friends are alive, and well. No one else did that, but he did.

 

Liam sleeps that night, with warm arms wrapped around him.

 

_'The sea was calm, your heart would have responded gaily, when invited, beating obedient to controlling hands I sat upon the shore fishing, with the arid plain behind me.'_

 

Liam doesn't cry anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking about another fic in continuation to this one. I just wanted a happy ending for the bunch but next one I may focus on Niall. It may have some more NSFW type scenes, but it'll be vague. I'm pretty sure you guys caught on to the one Ziam scene that was SUPPOSED to be Zayn and Liam getting it on but Harry walks in. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> All the love xx


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